The earliest theory of the quantum brain came from Stu Hameroff and Sir Roger Penrose. Dr Hameroff is an anesthesiologist in Arizona, and you know about Penrose. Their theory invoke quantum tunneling along microtubules, which we now know is possible but doesn't occur "much" under physiological conditions.
What does occur, is something entirely different. It's called "chiral induced spin selectivity". What it is, is a relationship between electron spin and proton movement.
For a long time scientists thought that protons mainly hop between water and amino acids. But now groups all over the world are discovering that CISS is an important part of human biology. Here's a recent paper that came out of Israel:
phys.org
Protons are neurotransmitters. They operate as such in many areas of the brain, including the retina, the amygdala, and the vestibular nuclei. They bind with postsynaptic acid receptors (acid sensing ion channels, or ASICs). This binding affects synaptic plasticity, which is to say, learning. For example -
All proteins are chiral. Chiral refers to handedness, like right handed vs left handed. Some proteins can switch their chiral states in response to chemical reactions/conditions. How a protein reacts to a proton, depends on its chiral state. And now it turns out, that the spin of neighboring electrons can influence the movement of protons, and the ease with which they can associate with chiral proteins.
Electron spin is affected by electric fields. Trans-membrane neural electrical gradients are enormous, sometimes millions of volts/m. Every time an action potential occurs, it tends to align the spins of electrons that are near the ion channels. This effect can be measured with ESR spectroscopy (electron spin resonance).
So you have a quantum feedback dynamic between the protons that affect the action potential, which then affect neighboring electron spins, which in turn affect proton movement.
This phenomenon is not limited to biological systems. There is an area of machine learning call spintronics, that deals with the same physics.
en.wikipedia.org
The electron spin concept of brain function has been floating around for a long time - for example
But it is only recently that it's been quantified in humans. Turns out, it happens "enough" to be real.
What does occur, is something entirely different. It's called "chiral induced spin selectivity". What it is, is a relationship between electron spin and proton movement.
For a long time scientists thought that protons mainly hop between water and amino acids. But now groups all over the world are discovering that CISS is an important part of human biology. Here's a recent paper that came out of Israel:
Quantum effects in proteins: How tiny particles coordinate energy transfer inside cells
Protons are the basis of bioenergetics. The ability to move them through biological systems is essential for life. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows for the first time that proton transfer is directly influenced by the spin of electrons when measured in chiral...
Protons are neurotransmitters. They operate as such in many areas of the brain, including the retina, the amygdala, and the vestibular nuclei. They bind with postsynaptic acid receptors (acid sensing ion channels, or ASICs). This binding affects synaptic plasticity, which is to say, learning. For example -
All proteins are chiral. Chiral refers to handedness, like right handed vs left handed. Some proteins can switch their chiral states in response to chemical reactions/conditions. How a protein reacts to a proton, depends on its chiral state. And now it turns out, that the spin of neighboring electrons can influence the movement of protons, and the ease with which they can associate with chiral proteins.
Electron spin is affected by electric fields. Trans-membrane neural electrical gradients are enormous, sometimes millions of volts/m. Every time an action potential occurs, it tends to align the spins of electrons that are near the ion channels. This effect can be measured with ESR spectroscopy (electron spin resonance).
So you have a quantum feedback dynamic between the protons that affect the action potential, which then affect neighboring electron spins, which in turn affect proton movement.
This phenomenon is not limited to biological systems. There is an area of machine learning call spintronics, that deals with the same physics.
Spintronics - Wikipedia
The electron spin concept of brain function has been floating around for a long time - for example
But it is only recently that it's been quantified in humans. Turns out, it happens "enough" to be real.
